1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to computer security systems, and, more particularly, to an occurrence level, value-based security system capable of limiting the access of some selected users and terminal locations to only some preselected, but variable, operations on selected database records and fields.
2. Description of the Related Art
As computing has evolved over the last several decades, it has become more accessible to the general public and user. The number and size of computer installations has increased dramatically over this period of time and is continuing to increase at an ever increasing rate. Single-computer, timesharing systems and remote access systems have highlighted the vulnerability of data communications as a key security issue in computing. That vulnerability today is becoming more serious with the proliferation of computer networking.
Another trend over this period of time has been to assign computers more of the chores of managing our personal and business activities. Computers are routinely handling the most sensitive correspondence. For example, electronic funds transfer systems pass our money around the globe in bit streams, and sensitive governmental communications are sent among various departments by computer networks.
There are several reasons why computer security is receiving so much attention at present. The availability of personal computers has brought computer literacy to the general public. Millions of people have taken computer courses in various schools, read computer books, purchased personal computers, or used computer systems at work. In today's highly computerized society, those who would commit fraud or a crime are often faced with penetrating a computer system's defenses to achieve their goal.
It is therefore important to implement security measures to ensure the uninterrupted and uncorrupted functioning of these systems. This problem has been approached on both a hardware and software level and various security protection schemes are currently available to provide some measure of system security.